Faith: "Dr. Seuss never tells you that even with brains in your head and feet in your shoes, you can still end up in Cleveland."Synopsis:
Faith, hanging out at the Cleveland Hellmouth, gets a call from Robin Wood. As assigned, she checks out the house of a single mother who was vamped, and finds six vamped children waiting to eat her. After staking them, understandably bummed, she returns to her Spartan abode to find Giles waiting with an offer she can't refuse -- early retirement and moola, a plane ticket to anywhere she wants -- in exchange for one assignment: taking out a very bad Slayer.
Who turns out to be Lady Genevieve Savidge, aka Gigi, an extremely rich, powerful, mystically-protected psychopath who is killing other slayers for sport and is about to cause a brand new apocalypse just in time for fall. (I can sort of see why Giles was perturbed about this.) Gigi is being sponsored by a warlock named Roden who -- surprise -- works for the "Twilight" guys.
In an obvious take-off of both My Fair Lady and Pretty Woman, Giles trains Faith on which fork to use and how to sound like an upper class Brit, and in the last panel, sends her on her mission -- strapped in a ball gown and on her way to a fancy dress event to infiltrate Gigi's circle.
In the meantime, Buffy confides to a surprisingly buff Xander that she is having nightmares that involve something chasing and devouring her, and saying, "The Queen is dead. Long live the Queen."
Review:
Set a thief to catch a thief. Send the Dark Slayer to take out an evil Slayer. Who better than Faith? Except that she has to turn into Eliza Doolittle to do it. This is going to be fun. It's certainly a lot more exciting than staking vamps in Cleveland. Which could sort of be interpreted as penance.
Buffy's dream must be one of her prophecy dreams. What could it mean? Essentially, Buffy is primo, number one, Queen of the Slayers, just as Giles is King of the Watchers. Is Gigi planning to take her down? Interesting that Gigi is also having nightmares. During the salad fork scene, Faith also had a brief waking nightmare about one of the vamp kids calling her a whore, which made her accidentally stab Giles with a fork. Which gave her a glimpse of Giles' tatt. Which sparked a conversation about the mistakes of youth and the responsibilities of adulthood. Anyway, dreams. Must be important.
For some reason, this issue was a lot easier to follow than the others. I knew what happened and everything the first time I read it. This is good.
Bits and pieces:
-- The cover has Faith holding a can of spray paint. Behind her, the "Buffy" logo has "Faith" spraypainted over it.
-- Robin Wood appears to be a Watcher, or at least Watcher-adjacent. Is he, or was he, Faith's Watcher?
-- Giles was wearing a sweater with an airplane on it. While trying to sell Faith on a mission that would get her out of the United States. Odd. Maybe that was the point. [Okay, I'm an idiot. Dan pointed out to me that it was the Beatles' Yellow Submarine.]
-- Xander was planning to spar with Renee. He insisted it wasn't the romantic kind of sparring, something Buffy does very well. I'm still sort of getting a Buffy/Xander vibe.
-- Faith is still smoking.
-- In the house where Faith killed the vamped kids, there were photos of the family on the mantle. One of the kids was missing his front teeth; what was left looked like fangs.
Quotes:
Giles: "According to every augur in my employ, including the great bearded wizard of Northampton, unless this young lady is terminated before fall's end, she will usher in..."
Faith: "The end of the world, right? You've got apocalypse written all over your face."
Faith; "What gives, G? I thought this stuck-up debutard lived in jolly olde. Why are we still chilling at the Mistake by the Lake?"
Giles: "The only chance you have at finishing this Slayer is by getting close to her through subterfuge and cunning."
Faith: "Hey, I likes me some kink, but if you think I'm going down-town on this chick, you chose the wrong chosen one."
Xander: "Fear my awesome power! For lo, like Kurt Russell before me, I am a formidable eyepatch-clad opponent. And lest you think I refer to Captain Ron, let me assure you that the one-eyed character of which I speak is none other than the mighty Snake Plissken, who taught me the very ass-handing I'm about to deliver unto you."
Buffy: "Careful, Xander. You're going to taunt that poor bag right off its chain."
Xander: "Has anyone seen where I left my bad analogy?"
Faith: (in an extreme ball gown) "So. How we doing here?"
Giles: "Five by five."
Fun. Three out of four stakes,
Billie
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Billie Doux reviewed all of Buffy and Angel, so she knows the plural of apocalypse.
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